Staring Up At The Sky
by Winter Wolf 1993
Summary: A dead woman, two missing people and Sara's too involved. Will her determination to solve the case cost lives?
1. Chapter 1

**Author: Winter Wolf 1993**

**Disclaimer**: For CSI; Don't own, don't sue.

For the OC's; Do own, ask if you want to borrow.

**Ships:** GSR hints. Some crushes.

**Title: Staring Up At The Sky.**

**Summery:** A dead woman, two missing people and Sara's too involved. Will her determination to solve the case cost lives?

**Chapter 1 - Sara's POV.**

* * *

A crash, a bang, Lindsey Willows screaming and suddenly nothing was the same.

A woman, no older than twenty five was lying in the middle of the road and I suddenly realise that she hasn't been hit by a car. No what's happened is much worse, because she's just been thrown from a dirty white van.

I run over and drop to my knees at her side. She's bleeding from what looks like multiple gunshot or knife wounds to the stomach. Her pale blue t-shirt is stained with blood, her blue jeans are soaked through with blood too. Her face is bruised but her eyes are open, a strand of reddish blonde hair caught on one of her eyelashes as she gaps for breath, struggling to live.

She gasps, bringing up blood as she tries to talk. I try to put pressure on her wounds but there are just too many of them and she's lost too much blood. I lean close to her, desperately listening for her words.

" Help... them," She chokes out and I realise that she's crying because the tears are cleaning paths over her grimy cheeks. She chokes for a second before she goes silent.

One breath... two breaths... she stops.

Her mint green eyes are staring up at the sky, staring but not seeing and I hear the ambulance but I know that it's far too late.

I know that she's already gone.

* * *

" Her name's Kristina Marshall," Gil says, putting up a picture of a woman. It's her all right, but she's not bruised, not bleeding and she's so very alive. " She's from San Francisco." 

He looks towards a thick casefile on the table, almost nervous and Catherine voices what Greg, Nick, Warrick and I are all thinking.

" Why do I get the feeling there's something more to this," Catherine says and Gil nods.

" She was one of three people kidnapped over a two week period," He says, putting up more photos. A man and a woman, both smiling at the camera and suddenly I realise what Kristina meant when she told me to 'save them.'

" Sarriah Williams, Daniel Tyler and Kristina Marshall all went missing from different places. Marshall from a night club in the heart of the city, Tyler from his apartment and Williams from the lab's parking lot," Gil says and something seems to hit me with the strength of a truck.

" Lab?" I ask and Gil nods.

" They're criminalists," He says. " Three of San Francisco's best."

" West's team?" Greg asks. " I read about them on the net. They're supposed to be stamping out the law breakers in that city."

" Well, no one could find very much evidence to do with the kidnappings, all that they could find were some prints that didn't match anyone in the system and a note at each scene."

He pulls out three notes and lays them flat on the table. We all lean forward to get a look at them.

YOU'LL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN, YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME. NEVER AGAIN WILL A CSI GET THE BETTER OF ME.

" So it sounds like he was a past offender," Nick says. "Why isn't he in the system."

" Most likely that he got off after he was interviewed but by then everyone already knew," Warrick says.

" And now he's making them pay the price," Greg says and he looks at the photo of the dead girl and I wonder if he'll still remember her when this case is closed.

" This case is thought of as cold," Gil says.

" Why?" Catherine asks. "Couldn't they solve it when it involved one of their own?"

She wants to criticise them so that no one here thinks it's their fault that Kristina died.

" Yes," Gil says. "But they went missing eight months ago."

Catherine's smirk which appeared when Gil said yes vanishes instantly and she looks at the photos, horror in her eyes.

Maybe I begin to wonder if they're still alive before Greg swallows five minutes later and says, in barely more than a whisper; "What are the chances?"

My heart is beating so loudly in my ears that I can't hear Gil's answer.

I don't think I want to.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please review! Telepathic cake for anyone who does.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author: Winter Wolf 1993**

**Disclaimer**: See chapter 1.

Dedicated to chocolatefan who was my first reviewer!

* * *

**Riah's POV.**

" Ray?" I look up from where I'm curled on the dirty warehouse floor.

" What Danny?" I ask, shivering in the cold. He calls me 'Ray' because he couldn't decide whether to call me 'Say' or 'Riah' so he settled on Ray.

" Is Kris dead?" He asks. "Or was that some awful nightmare."

I shudder. Earlier today the guy who's kept us here for eight months came with us to a newspaper clipping. Kris is dead, dumped outside the crime lab. One of the CSI's, Sidle or Sidel or something like that tried to save her.

" Yes," I whisper. "And this isn't a nightmare."

I hear Danny sniffle before I start to cough, tasting blood in my mouth just before I vomit on the ground. I scramble across to Danny and curl up beside him.

A long time ago, I used to hope that dreams would come true.

Now I just hope that we make it through the night.

* * *

**Sara's POV.**

The van didn't have a licence plate so I'm stuck going through everything that we got off of the Kristina Marshall and most of it's useless. Concrete could have come from anywhere, maybe even from the road that she was thrown onto.

It's been sealed off while they try to clean the blood away but I think that it won't ever go completely because blood is like that. It lingers and makes the bile rise in your throat years after the face. The wounds heal into scars but you still remember the wound.

A plea, a dying gasp and now I've got to find her friends.

I couldn't save her. But I can, I should, save them.

It's the least I can do.

* * *

**Gil's POV.**

She's letting this case get to her and she's getting far too involved in it. So far, in the twenty four hours since Kristina Marshall died she's only left that desk once. And it was only because Catherine threatened to report her to Ecklie.

The second time she leaves the desk it's to refill her water bottle and I take the casefile away and give it to Greg. He looks at it for a while before returning it.

She comes back in a bod mood and two hours later storms into my office.

" I want the casefile back," She says.

" No," I grab it off of the desk before she can snatch it and she glares at me.

" Stop it!" She snaps.

" No, Sara," I say, looking her right in the eye. "You stop."

Sara shrugs.

" I can't," She says. " I couldn't save her. The least I can do is save them."

* * *

**Catherine's POV**

I have no idea what's wrong with Sara but she just yelled at Greg, Nick and Warrick all in the space of about ten minutes.

A pretty amazing feat when they were all in separate places.

I think that this case is getting to her, I mean, I've seen her take cases hard but this is almost as bad as the one with the dead wife. Almost because she hasn't insulted me yet. That's why I don't want her to see the things that the kidnapper has sent us.

Tapes, things that he's filmed before, during and since he took them.

* * *

_(rewind, play)_

_The woman, Sarriah Williams, has shoulder length brown hair and emerald green eyes. She exits the lab, carrying her purse in one hand and her cellphone in the other. As Sarriah makes her way to the car, there's a noise, someone talking to her from the bushes just beyond the lab's boundary wall. She walks over and leans over it, calling out._

" _Hello?" She calls softly as the kidnapper approaches her, oblivious to his presence. " Is anyone the-"_

* * *

_(rewind, play)_

_Kristina is drunk, staggering along the alley and giggling at nothing, one hand loosely holding onto her purse as she slurs into her cell phone._

" _Well, I'll be careful," She giggles again. " Tyler, I'm not a kid."_

_She hangs up, still laughing as the kidnapper approaches, syringe in hand. She turns just as he reaches her, the smile vanishing and her eyes widening in fear. _

* * *

_(rewind, play)_

_Laughing, a group of people with super soaker's even thought it's winter and they'll most likely catch hypothermia in this weather. A detective, soaking their boss who laughs and sprays most of the water in his at a woman with bobbed blonde hair._

* * *

**Sara's POV.**

I hate these tapes because they're of a happy life, a happy time before three of the team ended up missing, one dead and the other two God knows where. I hate them because if anything, I'm learning so much about these people that I feel like I've known them for years.

They don't go by their full names, they go by short versions. Danny for Daniel. Kris for Kristina and Riah for Sarriah. They all drink coffee, black with no sugar and no milk. Riah chews gum constantly, Kris likes chocolate and Danny likes burgers.

This is why it's so much harder to go to Kris's autopsy and to stand and watch as Doc Robbins tells me his findings.

" Cause of death was exsanguination, six stab wounds to the abdomen," Doc Robbins says sadly. " She has a lot of cuts and bruises, too. It seems that her nose has been broken several times. Her left arm seems to have been broken too. It looks like someone managed to push it into a decent position for it to heal, it's slightly bent here."

I lean closer and see that in the middle of her forearm, it's slightly twisted off to the right, as if it's a pole that's been bent.

" Someone bandaged her wounds," Doc Robbins says, holding up some pieces of what appears to be two shirts. " One looks like a woman's, the other a man's."

" In the kidnapping tapes, Williams and Tyler were wearing white shirts over their t shirts," Warrick says from behind me, causing me to jump. " So they were kept together."

" So if we find out where Kris came from then we'll find out where the other two are," I stare at Kris. She looks like she's asleep.

I wish she was.

* * *

**Danny's POV.**

It's cold here, even though we're in the middle of the desert. Ray yanked my leg back into an almost normal position earlier after the guy that's keeping us here broke it. She cried. And she never cries. I wonder if that's another sign. First Kris, the woman who never got so much as a paper cut was killed and now the woman who never cries is crying her eyes out on the other side of the warehouse and I can't do anything to comfort her because I'm stuck here with a broken leg and God knows what else.

" You know," Ray says as she crawls across the concrete floor to sit beside me. " I hated the sun eight months ago."

" Me too," I say. "Now I'd give anything to see it again."

There's no light, except for one little light bulb and even that isn't very good. But I see her nod and hear her sniffle as she lays her head on my chest, careful to avoid my broken leg.

" I don't want to die here," She whispers and I touch her forehead, running my thumb down her cheek, feeling the tears there.

" You won't," I whisper. " I won't let you."

Maybe it's now that I start to make a plan.

* * *

**Author's Note: Please review!**


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